Heather Eddy Art

It's my first time trying a painting using color inspiration from a picture. Nine colors are just too many! More contrast would have been helpful, but it was a good lesson for me. After painting, I went through and added pencil, then white pen (both thin then thick) and finally black pen. That's where I felt like it finally started to come together!  I'm still happy with the orthogons providing the basis for my drawing.  So satisfying! 

After dinner yesterday I came home and noticed a soreness in my mouth. When I looked in the mirror I could see that I had an infection in my gums. It freaked me out and I got in the car to see if Urgent Care was open. It was not, but I was able to make an appointment for 8am this morning. I practically told the doctor what to do - write me a prescription for antibiotics! I've got an abscessed tooth! My dentist was wrong when he told me there was nothing wrong when I reported soreness a few weeks ago! My doctor was wrong, too, but that's not her fault when it was a dental thing. Knowing I had to get up early made it hard to sleep and I started yawning at 630pm tonight. Here's a picture of a painting I did earlier this year, but just detailed recently. It's gonna have to suffice since I've got nothing in me tonight. Oh - we went to Best Buy to "look at TVs". And came home with a TV that was bigger than me and cheaper than the old on

It's Thanksgiving day and for the second year in a row,  we've gone out to eat instead of cooking.  I'm glad about this for several reasons.  First, not as much together time with family. Tensions can run high when everyone's in close proximity for too long. (Why don't we like each other?) Second, I got to have a burger instead of turkey. And I had mashed potatoes and gravy instead of fries. Oh happy day! Kenneth sat with his aunt's family instead of with Brian and me. I watched his face as he interacted with them. It was happy. He was laughing.  It's obvious he prefers their company - he always has. Every time I see him like that, I wonder why he was born to me. Why am I the parent God gave him? On the bright side, he lets me have lots of alone time...  With some of that alone time I had this morning, I drew out a new watercolor block painting using orthogons.  I learned about this - what should I call it? - design the

Tonight it's raining (an infrequent event in Kern county that is cause for celebration) and it's the night before Thanksgiving which means four glorious days off! Tonight I'm not getting much accomplished art-wise, but I'm thankful I get to play like this anyway. By small and simple things...

I'm loving how this one turned out! The Viviva colorsheets are so lovely!  The car is in the shop until they can find a new engine for it. I begged a ride for a couple of days from my coworker who only lives a couple of blocks away and he was really nice to agree. (I hope my being his supervisor didn't scare him into doing it..... ) Brian came home in such a good mood tonight - I love it when he feels carefree (with a car in the shop, no less!). That's the cute guy I married... It's supposed to start raining tonight.  I can't wait!  Today is my sister Meagan's birthday. She would have been 45 yo. Five years ago she died from an accidental overdose after knee surgery. I still catch myself reaching for the phone to call or text her. It doesn't feel like she's gone. Does that mean heaven is close?

Good news!  The car can be fixed and we can afford it! Whew. So many blessings for which to be thankful.... I got to be at home today- a lucky scheduling change considering I  had no car. Brian will be using my car for now and a coworker who lives only a few streets away is kindly giving me rides.  I am grateful for so many things today!  In art news, I found this unfinished drawing in a stack of paper and painted it with a limited palette of turquoises and browns - one of my favorites.  It's the first one my 12yo has liked! We both prefer grids and order during times of uncertainty. 

Actually,  it might be. Halfway to Vegas, our car made a funny vibration when we pulled out of the gas station. It went away, so we didn't think about it again until we got into town and stopped at a light. As we accelerated the car was rough again and then another time as we stopped and went at lights. Needless to say, my hubs and I were a little nervous until we got to our hotel safely. Brian called the dealership and made an appointment for the next day.  We were in Vegas to meet up with a couple of family members who were in Utah  for Thanksgiving.  It's halfway between our two locations.  The shop didn't even have our car for an hour before they called and told us it was a cracked engine block.  We did our best to enjoy the family time - my poor sister had to be our chauffeur for most of the day as we all had different things we'd planned. I owe her big! $500 later, we were told they couldn't fix the car and we'd have to take it back home and have it looked

There's only been a few minutes here and there to paint and that might be my fault in not insisting I get time instead of doing things for others.  Do you ever wonder if when we get to heaven that God will ask why we didn't do more for ourselves? Under the guise of serving, it's easy to procrastinate isn't things for the... less important (and maybe even the "not asked for").

I have a beautiful assortment of art supplies and decided that my little house paintings are the perfect vehicles for experimentation!  Since this year has been set aside for learning new techniques, I'm limiting my colors. I'm also not so keen on messing up the colorsheet pages with too much back and forth between colors. They're put together in pamphlet form with two colors per page. I used the first two pages for a total of 4 colors:  It's still a surprise at how saturated the colors are. They blend nicely and are really transparent.  The chalkiness and sedimentary (granulating) look of some watercolors isn't my favorite.  Tomorrow I'll put roofs on them and do the line work.  I get to go to Blick art supplies tomorrow! (Because I want more watercolors and Danielle Donaldson used new brushes in her latest workshop and I want to try a couple) (I'm still trying to find a good round brush)

In June (July?) we had our 10th anniversary of living in this house. I've dreamed of having my own house for FOREVER. I knew that when I finally had my own place, I was going to have the prettiest=looking house in the history of ever. It was going to be beautifully painted & decorated with artistic flair and have flowers and all that jazz. Fast forward to when we bought our house. We were poor and just plain lucky to have a place. Life was also funny then. My husband and I were still newlyweds (4 years in) and I struggled with a lot of things. I wasn't happy, so I had no heart to decorate or garden or anything. Fast forward to now. I'm happier (life is funny) and I feel the stirrings of wanting to have a pretty home. We were still poor, though, so getting anything done on the house didn't happen until we refinanced the loan. Yay! A little bit of money to do some things! The wood siding on the front of our house has been slowly warping and f

Oh, today was beautiful! It rained for the first time since May and it lasted nearly ALL DAY LONG!!! I've been asking for rain in my prayers for days now. If you don't ask, you don't get. :) There was another 4-hour meeting at work today so I got to fold more little circles. I thought it would be a good idea to make the text blocks a little smaller in sequence, to see if I could make a Christmas tree type ornament. This arrangement looks more like a wedding cake. After I took this picture, I rearranged the stack and put the littlest one on the bottom like a trunk. It worked better, but I need another small piece for the top of the tree shape. Oh well. Another day, another thing that doesn't turn out like you expect. Poor Kiff is having so much trouble with life. Everything he touches ends up in chaos. I can tell where he's been in the house because there's this trail of destruction. I have to remind him way past my threshold of patience to

Some days are full of this Reading: Joseph Smith's History (with Kiff since he's 12 and not able to do this on his own) Learning: I need to recognize my triggers - disappointment is one of them - the house didn't get stuccoed yesterday like expected and I was anticipating its beauty. It wasn't done today either because the color isn't going to be in until tomorrow - fingers crossed. The insulation did get done (yay! cool bedroom in the summer for ONCE?) Working: Shh (so grateful for days when coworkers are easy to communicate with) Listening: A bit of Kiff's The Sea of Monsters  - understandable why there wasn't a third movie in the series Playing: As soon as I shower and get into bed (soooooo sleepy), I'm going to play a little Homescapes - it makes me happy Eating: Chicken Parmesan (I do not like this store-bought kind - homemade for the win) - then tostadas because blech Looking forward: seeing Mom for Thanksgiving. It's been 5 years!!!

A few years ago I discovered that my local office store offered paper chopping services. When people are making flyers, they will make a million copies on full-size paper and then get it cut down into halves or quarters. Guess what! They can cut books, too! Before my workplace got a paper guillotine, I paid 50 cents per cut.  I experimented with several kinds of books before I found the type I like best for ornaments - plain old paperback novels.  Materials: Old paperback book you don't intend to read anymore. At least 150 pages (75 leaves) embroidery floss or ribbon or baker's twine for hanging Glitter & glue stick for decorating Directions: 1. Start with getting your book cut - paperbacks are about 4.25"x7" (10.5cm x 17.5cm) - I cut this one into 5 pieces - no particular size.  View #1 - book cut, but close together View #2 - separated - this seemed important to show, but it's probably not 2. From one

Today's excitement was at church. Kenneth was passing the sacramental bread and then was missing for the water. It turns out he got sick as he was passing and another man saw Kiff's distress, took over and Kiff ran out to the bathroom to lose his cookies. NICE MAN!!! Nice ladies in the foyer who fawned over my child as he lay on the couch and suffered. One of them came over to Brian's pew and informed him of the trauma unfolding so he took the child home. And left me at church without a ride home. Fortunately, one of the ladies foresaw that I needed a ride home and offered me one before I even knew I'd been abandoned. SILLY HUSBAND! She and I had a wonderful talk on the way home from church. I've missed having women friends. This afternoon I had time to work on my Christmas ornaments for this year's presents. I think they turned out so nice... Reading: Alma 42 Learning: Martin Hansen taught Sunday School today and he talked about touring the Vatican o

Reading & Learning: Trying to learn. There's so much to unlearn. It's hard learning to see something you've not recognized for what it is. That's a life lesson there. Watching (& learning): Lesson 1 pt.5 of Danielle Donaldson's Spirit Mama class. Cristall Harper had something interesting she said in an article the SLTrib did on her art journey (silly phrase): “I was, like, I’m just going to work hard. I’m going to hustle.  I’m going to do the time,” she remembers.  “I don’t care how long it takes. I’m not in a hurry.” I'm not in a hurry? HA! I'm always in a hurry, worried I've wasted too much time getting from A to A.b.  Harper said she “always expected to make it.  But the surprise was the subject matter that took off.  I never set out thinking, ‘I’m going to paint dogs because people love them.’” That's an interesting thing - she didn't know what her "thing" was going to be. I'v

Saying "I'm back" seems a little Captain Obvious , but it's what it is. Four years is quite a while to go between posts, but it's time to be back. Thinking: how do I follow me instead of being pushed about by everything I read? I've been pondering how to find my artistic voice and I've read So. Much. Stuff. It's good stuff but I have this niggling feeling that, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz,  I already have the answer.  Reading: Gracious Living in a New World: Finding Joy in Changing Times   and  Louder Than Words: Harness the Power of Your Authentic Voice Learning: watercolor from Danielle Donaldson: Spirit Mama workshop . Here's what I made tonight:  Working: Cookies & Conversations with the branches/rewriting the fine-free report for Kern County Watching: Ant-Man  (still not tired of it) Listening: ocean sounds on the Alexa Playing: Homescapes  Eating: Taco Bell, hamburger and delicious chocolate pan cake (simple is